KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA said on Wednesday it had released suspected terrorist Yazid Sufaat, detained since 2001 after being connected with the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, as he is now 'safe'.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Yazid, a member of regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah who was freed from a detention camp in northern Malaysia on Nov 24, was now safe to be released into society.
Yazid Sufaat: From bright student to key JI operative
Yazid
Yazid emerged as a key figure in JI's regional network because of his link to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent who was convicted of conspiracy charges in the Sept 11 attacks in New York.
'He was considered as a threat to public security in Malaysia because he was part of Jemaah Islamiyah, trying to establish an Islamic government within the region,' he told reporters.
'I think after holding him for so long, he can be brought back into society but at the same time we will follow closely everyone that may have ideology of militancy or extremism.
'We won't hold any person longer than necessary.'
Syed Hamid did not say whether Yazid, whose extradition had been sought by the United States after his detention, was under any restriction order that would oblige him to report to police.
A home ministry official told AFP that Yazid was released on Nov 24. The minister said five other Malaysian and two Thai separatist suspects were freed in December after being held without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA).
Some of the seven released suspects had been held since 2002. Security detainees undergo intensive counseling in a special prison and the government has said they are only released if authorities are convinced that they have been 'rehabilitated.'
Human rights activist Nalini Elumalai said the three alleged Jemaah Islamiyah members, including Yazid, were released on the condition that they remain within their home districts and report regularly to police.
Details about the other four and their alleged wrongdoing were not immediately available, although two were accused of links to violence in neighboring Thailand's southern most provinces, whichhave been terrorised by regular attacks since early 2004.
Yazid, a US-trained biochemist, was arrested in late 2001 when he returned home from Afghanistan, where he was suspected of working on a biological and chemical weapons program.
He has also been accused of giving a false letter of employment to Zacarias Moussaoui - the only person charged and convicted in the United States for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 - that helped Moussaoui enter the United States.
Security officials have said that Yazid described the program he was developing for Al-Qaeda as being in the 'conceptual stages' when their plans were interrupted by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Officials have said Yazid was not at the meetings said to have taken place at his apartment, and that the Sept 11 attacks were not discussed there, but that during informal chats, the future hijackers told their hosts that Southeast Asian militants were obliged to kill Americans and destroy American interests.
Syed Hamid said that since he had been appointed home minister in March, the number of ISA detainees had been reduced to 46 from 70.
'From time to time the cases will be reviewed and, as they are reviewed, we will look at the file and if it's time to release them we will do that. We will not hold them any longer than necessary,' he said.
As well as suspected terrorists, the ISA has been used recently to detain government critics including the nation's top blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin, who was freed in November under a landmark court ruling. - AFP, AP.
